I'm not a believer that you can only build big triceps with close grip bench and stuff like that. As far as I'm concerned, any exercise with enough intensity and enough load is going to put size on you.
Now...if you want big arms, you need big tri's. They make up most of the mass of your arm, they're the daddy's!
The biggest problem people have when using cable work for triceps is that they lean into it and use their bodyweight and don't use their triceps to do the work. There's two common ways people do that - you can physically lean in or you can let your elbows drift back so that the load becomes closer to your body. The key is to keep the elbows locked in one position, go through full range of movement and it's a big sweeping arch with your hands.
Another thing - Personally I prefer a thumb-wrap grip and keep my hand inline with my forearm. This aids the stretch of the tricep at the top of the movement. If I'm going very, very heavy then I will go to a suicide style grip where my thumbs are over the top and I'll bend my wrists down, just because the sheer load is too much for my wrists to take. You just need to be conscious of keeping your bodyweight on your heel and keeping upright throughout the movement.
Key Points
It doesn't matter what bar you're using - vbar, ez bar, straight bar, it's always the same.
- Grip the bar, thumbs round underneath.
- Stand quite close to the machine - You want the cable above the bar to track fairly straight up and down.
- Chest up, weight on the mid-foot to the heel, elbows in either side.
- Nice big sweeping arch, hands come right up to your shoulders and then return to the straight position.
Things to Remember
With triceps or any exercise, when you get to the heavy stuff, when you're trying to overload a little bit, there's no problem with a bit of swing, a bit of leaning in, but just make sure that when you do that you do load the negatives and you control the negatives correctly. If I'm going heavy I will cock my wrists a little bit just to protect my wrists more than anything, but I'd only do it on your heaviest set, because it does take a little bit of load off the triceps.
